I only ever really see three classes now, Elementalist, orbweaver or thief. I pretty much never see another class unless the team has a 6k~ rating or is a joke team (3 firebomb and a phylactery for example).
Sure, maybe it’s just that I’m noticing Elementalist more because it’s so obvious when it’s on the field, but it’s completely dominated my pvp experience and I have genuinely lost all enjoyment of pvp and GW since its introduction.
So I ran a few ranked pvp battles to see how the distribution looks, and three things became very obvious very quickly. First, the opponents below tier 1 are a complete random mess. After you reach tier 1, the number of meta teams encountered skyrockets. Those of you claiming not to see many elementalists probably quit after reaching tier 1 rewards.
Secondly, there are a lot of elementalists. A third of the teams encountered had an elementalist hero. The runner-ups were Thief, Orbweaver, and no hero. Thief was commonly used for goblins, orbweaver was always for the life and death team, and no hero was always to spam TGW (the great worm). There were a bunch of other random classes in use. Zuul’goth fell into that category a lot, typically with classes that have the War talent tree like shaman and warlord.
Lastly, the elementalist class is extremely versatile. A lot of meta teams I am familiar with have had their canonical hero replaced with elementalist. Titans are practically extinct. Only a handful that rely on very specific class traits remain. Flipping the previously mentioned examples on their head, the life and death team is still strictly owned by orbweavers, goblins are mostly run by the thieves, and most of the time, 3x TGW has no hero at all. Additionally, nearly half of the off meta teams have an elementalist running the show.
Here’s my small sample of data ignoring everything below tier 1 as well as junk teams (firebombs, treasures, gnomes, etc):
Total: 45
====By Hero Class====
Elementalist: 15
Thief: 8
Orbweaver: 6
No hero: 4
Other heroes: 17
====By Team Type====
life and death: 6
zuul’goth: 6
beetrix: 6
the great worm: 5
webspinner: 4
rope dart: 3
goblins: 3
skeleton key: 2
other: 14
The elementalist class has definitely taken over the game. I don’t know what else can be said about it, so do what you will with that information.
Before Elementalist it was always orbweaver and Thief. With Elementalist there’s now a counter to those.
I’m probably not playing pvp as much as others do. I find it rather boring because it’s always the same teams. It used to be like that since I started playing, only the meta changed.
You may be right that I’m seeing different teams because I don’t play that many pvp games.
I was curious so I looked at the PvP leaderboard, top 25 players. Saturday, July 2, 8:45 PM CST.
Skipped those showing no class selected.
Assuming defense team unchanged through week.
Yep, I can see how popular Elementalist is.
| Class | Defense W, L |
|---|---|
| Mechanist | 391, 314 |
| Elementalist | 101, 177 |
| Elementalist | 177, 140 |
| Elementalist | 211, 242 |
| Slayer | 199, 186 |
| Elementalist | 159, 173 |
| Elementalist | 84, 87 |
| Elementalist | 94, 98 |
| Elementalist | 163, 142 |
| Dragonguard | 121, 227 |
| Elementalist | 76, 95 |
| Archer | 18, 87 |
| Priest | 250, 217 |
| Elementalist | 205, 148 |
| Elementalist | 169, 152 |
| Elementalist | 112, 128 |
| Necromancer | 26, 89 |
| Elementalist | 50, 63 |
| Elementalist | 63, 103 |
| Elementalist | 54, 166 |
| Sunspear | 51, 149 |
| Monk | 15, 143 |
| Warpriest | 53, 62 |
Not as thorough because it is just not my thing but I got to 10 teams with hero (and I only wrote down the classes)
My rank is 27,907 right now so, yeah, I didn’t play it much.
So, Elementalist doesn’t have an unreasonably high win rate is what I’m getting from this. 
Well, I didn’t take the time to jot down the defense teams deployed by those players. Some are better than others, I suppose.
Yeah, for sure. I myself have teams that work better with classes other than Elementalist.
Point I was trying to make is that if it was way too overpowered, the win ratio should be higher.
I think many people operate under that assumption and slap Elementalist on their defense team when something else would probably work better.
Why do you need to go against these players with elementalist class on and complain? Pick me instead. My hero will give you more gold. Go against Elementalist if you’d like to learn how to counter it. Otherwise pick a defense team like mine.
As I’ve said before in here, I built teams specifically to counter Elementalist. The reason I win most fights against Elementalist teams is because of that, I would assume that most other people who do a lot of pvp are the same. I do the same for beetrix.
The teams other than that I get to try and counter the whole team instead of just the class, it’s a lot more fun and satisfying.
That you don’t play pvp explains a lot about our conversations - you never play against these things so you only see them when using them offensively.
Agree - some classes can be buffed up for sure. Too many useless ones. But don’t nerf anything.
The issue here is overall game balance and has been since I started playing. Creativity options are thwarted because there are useless classes, useless troops and of late, ridiculously bad mythics. Leio is unworkable and only Piscea has value of the astrology mythics released so far. Wild King is good but its the same old story. Over a thousand troops but the same old PvP or wars nonsense due to limited firepower troop and class options. Opponent or attack variation is limited because not enough thought is going into stuff before it is released. Churning out garbage is mostly all we see. ANY mythic or class should have viability but its been forever since this was the case. Don’t nerf what actually works, buff what doesn’t (insert mythic/troop/class…) or at least work harder with future stuff. 6 kingdoms and classes incoming so we will see how much they care before long. Geomancer weapon creates gargoyles which with lava storm will be interesting and may counter lots of stuff if played correctly.
I play in bracket 2 in guild wars. You do see a lot of Elementalist teams but you still see a lot of Monk and Thief and Orbweaver and even Tidecaller as well. If you are building anti Elementalist teams you are on the right track because every single team you face should have a specific counter for it. Not just the class they are using but for the class and their troops combined.
Often if the defense teams are varied enough you have to make class and roster changes against each opponent for that day and while the Elementalist class can pose problems but you get to see their team first you get to build a team to specifically counter it and then you get the first move and if you have done the counter team well it is unlikely they will get a turn or if they do they get very few. It is a powerful tool but it has counters and really is not as bad as a lot of people make it out to be. Board control to limit or stop 4+ matches works very well in preventing them from getting to use the 3rd trait at all and if they do get a lucky 4+ match from the sky your team should have a cleanse option built in.
Honestly a goblin team with a 50% start class like Frostmage scares me a lot more than one with Elementalist because with one match the turnip is ready to cast and can loop if you have not yet managed to disable their team enough by either killing a troop or 2 or freezing them on green and red.
Counters exist strategies exist I do not think it is so bad to fight against and using it for offense fills a much needed role on some days where you do not have good troop options to stun and freeze their team. I think people just need to get used to it and learn to work with and against it instead of expecting it to get disabled by devs because it can be done for sure and strategy and learning it is how you grow as a player.
When you first start out you are likely building random teams with no synergy and no mythics but as you grow as a player you learn to do better and manage to gather some mythics that greatly help. Instead of lowering the bar we can always learn to jump higher so long as thats possible and in this case it certainly is.
Not exactly a true statement given that the attacker also has the option of choosing the same class. Drop an elementalist team with an empowered start and a cleanse in there and you have a solid chance of winning.
Part of the problem is that elementalist is just good for nearly everything. Part of the blame does fall on the empowered mana troops of course because they take care of the last weakness of the class. Other than that, we have barriers and stun immunity from the stone tree, snap freeze and freeze immunity from water, and mana generation with lightning strike from storms. In order to buff other classes up to the same level, they have to outperform elementalist at their own job just to make them a real viable alternative.
Ok hear me out: use elementalist. Between snap freeze and a highly probable 4 match, you’ll have the goblins defused quite reliably. The fact that counters to other teams exist is not a problem, but the fact that elementalist can be used as the counter for nearly everything is definitely a problem. Hell, I even use elementalist for the tower event simply because I can’t be bothered to switch and it works well enough that I don’t have to.
Right… Often I am using Elementalist against them my point was about THEM using Elementalist with the goblin team as defense vs using Frostmage as defense. If they have a 50% start and the right banner 1 gem match gets them enough mana to start using the turnip where if they use Elementalist then they have to get lucky with 4 matches to get the turnip up in one turn. All depends on the day I encounter them though as to what class I use to counter them. Some teams benefit much more from Monks mana on 4+ matches to ensure you can keep looping than you do from freezing up their team. When you remove a goblin or 2 the turnip is about as scary as a weak fart in a strong wind. Also depends on your bracket as to how important bringing the right team can be and I assure you in bracket 2 it matters a lot and Elementalist is not always the correct answer and just auto using it is a bad call.
I said something about that in the other thread. Used to have anti goblins and anti traits teams that I usually don’t need anymore because I can use Elementalist offensively.
So yes, it’s a strong class, but it’s strong for both sides.
I have very specific teams for gw for every day against certain teams - it’s not that I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just don’t think it’s an issue.
I do encounter these things, but usually there are three slots to pick from, or a reroll, and I have other teams that bother me way more.
I never said I don’t play pvp, I said I don’t play it as much as others do.
Hi All,
I follow this tread with much interest, Im in GW bracket 4, so I think not so much experience as most here in topic, but I like to be challenged in GoW !
I must say that not only Elementalist can make me sweat in my GW battles the orbweaver, thief, tidecaller, the team post by @Wow can be a pain in the * to battle against.
In the guild where im in we have the motto YOU CAN WIN OR LEARN !
I have so for each color more teams to play for that day and I have chosen to use 2 medals Orpheus and 1 Anu or Nysha depends on the class I play with that have given me several times the difference between win or lose a battle.
Over the PVP there are 3 windows to chose from and the called CRAB/ JUNK teams sorry I find that a bit of pity those teams are not meant for players as the one who call them that way.
Myself go for the window where I can learn from or train my GW defense or attack teams.
The input that if you play not so active PVP you dont can have a good clear opinion over if the class is OP is also imo not right if you are a fanatic, high experience GW player who has fought many battles against many classes so also Elementalist can give here a good opinion what he/she find of this class.
Im not all of these I have play every GW since I start playing this game but im a passionate player and give everything I have in each battle no matter what event but Im not a top GW player and also not the one with all knowledge and experience most people here in this topic has I think…
But as player who play this game 4 years and hasnt miss a day and have battle to all classes I can say out of my experience that I find Elementalist real strong class to battle against but Frostmage, Thief, Orbweaver and Tidecaller are imo also real strong classes.
I can defeat all and also be crushed by all so that challenge me to dive in my troops and experience the battles I lost from, and then the luck factor is in all classes/battles a need to get a good first start/match
Submerge is btw a great way to frustrate the enemy or me 
some battles where coz of that so long even with the seemly OP Q Bee also a great interesting thread and also her I find not extreme many battles I defeat her but also got a loss by her!
I see this things Class, Troop and the Heroic Gargoyle/Lycanthropy just a trigger to be creative and experiment with what you have and then its a great feeling/ satisfied if you defeat those more difficult challenges in the game! 
[7201,1056,6622,6620,3067,2,2,2,3,3,3,2,14012]
This works for Leio - it’s Leio, Mountain Crusher, Gargoyle, Ethereal Sentry.
Revives good old MC and Titan combo.
Is it the most effective team? Nah…
A similar team works with Sparkinator but if that thing is webbed, it’s not doing great while Leio still works.
So you can at least make him work. But he’s not great, that’s for sure.
When I play PVP, I look for pets. Players don’t need to suffer against an Elementalist class.
Just know your priorities and aim for it. I need the new pets. I go against easy one. Fast pet farming. No issues with Elementalist.
That is what I was getting at. People who complain that it’s so strong in defense need to counter it, Elementalist being one way to do it.
